News headlines in February 2014, page 6

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (IPS) - The U.S. government has announced that it will be offering substantial loan guarantees for two new nuclear reactors, giving a major boost to what would be the first such projects to go forward in the United States in more than three decades.

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 20 (IPS) - Argentine consumers have responded to calls on social networks to mobilise against price hikes that threaten the country's major advances towards poverty reduction and greater social equality.

SINGAPORE, Feb 20 (IPS) - Two Myanmar Buddhist politicians who were visiting Malaysia narrowly escaped a late night assassination attempt outside a leading shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur this month. The incident has raised fears of an overseas spillover of the religious violence that has engulfed their state of Rakhine in recent years.

PORT LOUIS, Feb 20 (IPS) - "The Marine Protected Area (MPA) created around the Chagos archipelago is a new obstacle that the British government has placed in our path to prevent us from going back to our homeland," claims Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos Refugees Group (CRG).

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (IPS) - When the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their deadline in 2015, there will still be a critical setback: millions of people in the developing world without full access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in their homes.

KIEV, Feb 19 (IPS) - Bloody clashes that have left more than a score dead and more than a 1,000 injured in the Ukrainian capital could continue for weeks. Local people say there is now "no way back" for either side in what has become the worst crisis in the country's post-Soviet history.

ATHENS, Feb 19 (IPS) - A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Greece and other recession-hit European countries as they undergo harsh austerity measures in exchange for a bailout. At the heart of it is the Troika, say trade unions, civil society and rights activists.

MALAGA, Spain, Feb 19 (IPS) - Volunteers are hard at work in an industrial warehouse in the Spanish city of Malaga, organising thousands of kilos of rice, sugar, lentils and oil to be shipped this February to Saharawi refugee camps in Tindouf, in the west of Algeria.

TAMALE, Feb 19 (IPS) - With tears rolling down her cheeks, Zainab Salifu queued at the fevers unit of the Tamale Teaching Hospital in northern Ghana. Earlier in the day, the 18-year-old had been diagnosed HIV positive.

WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (IPS) - In an effort to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, President Barack Obama on Tuesday directed his administration to develop new fuel efficiency and emissions standards for trucks within the year.